


Study Break

by dairesfanficrefuge_archivist



Category: Highlander - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-27
Updated: 2000-01-27
Packaged: 2018-12-18 05:40:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist/pseuds/dairesfanficrefuge_archivist
Summary: Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived atDaire's Fanfic Refuge. Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onDaire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile.





	Study Break

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Daire's Fanfic Refuge](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Daire%27s_Fanfic_Refuge). Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Daire's Fanfic Refuge's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/dairesfanficrefuge/profile).

Study Break by Viking Lass

| 

_Study Break_

By Jen Erickson aka Viking Lass 

Disclaimer: The character of Kronos belongs to Panzer/Davis and Gaumont. I am borrowing him with love and respect. 

Author's note: It's my first Kronos story. I wanted something silly with no emotional tangles from the gang. I am allowed to rag on Jersey since I am from there. Comments can be sent to [email redacted by archivist] 

* * *

Kronos left his tiny apartment in Jersey City to go food shopping. He parked his black pick-up truck in the parking lot, obtained a shopping cart and entered the supermarket. It was a large store, with some spots and areas being quite dirty and dingy. It was, after all, in Jersey City, not the cleanest of New Jersey towns. Kronos kinda liked the dirt and grime since it reminded him of times when he had shopped in the markets of Assyria. 

He was in a hurry to get his groceries and get home to his textbooks. He had an exam coming up this week in Micro Cellular Biology at UMDNJ. He was studying Virology again. Modern science had learned so much since the last three or four times he had studied medicine and diseases. He needed a sugar high and a caffeine rush to get him through studying. He was a college student. He planned to buy some candy and coffee, the two staples of a true college student. He could pull all-nighters with ease because of his Immortality. He actually pitied his mortal classmates as they struggled through medical school. 

The store was crowded, it was Saturday morning, and Kronos had little patience for large crowds. He tensed as a shopping cart, pushed by two little children whizzed past his cart. _Mortals, there's no use for them unless they were serving me,_ he thought. It was very hard for him to shop among large numbers of mortals since his tendency was to kill, or at least hurt, who ever bothered him. But that sort of behavior would ruin the life he was leading as a pre-med student. He needed to learn about viruses and their effects on mortals. He had been in England when the Black Plague had struck, it hadn't been the first time he had seen the effects of a plague, but it was noteworthy. Since then he had seen that Mother Nature had different ways of dealing Death to the mortals. She was as varied as he was in dispensing Death. 

Kronos maneuvered his shopping cart along the crowded aisles. He was never the one to say, "Excuse me." It was always the mortals who said that as they inched their carts over so he could pass. One of his female classmates, a cute redhead, had noticed he was tense one day and suggested he do deep breathing exercises. So here he was in a crowded supermarket taking deep breaths and trying so hard to hold back his killer instinct. 

The candy aisle was his favorite spot in the whole store. He picked up a bag of chocolate candy bars, a bag of lollipops, a bag of War Heads, he _loved_ the name of that candy, and a bag of gum. Then, he moved further down the aisle to get his favorite sugary treat of the twentieth century. But there were two little old ladies standing there blocking his way to the marshmallows. 

Kronos listened impatiently to their conversation. 

"Ruth, my cousin Edna said I should come visit her this summer." 

"Oh, Dottie, you should go!" 

"My cousin is the most difficult person in the world to deal with. She goes on and on about wrongs done to her forty years ago. I try to tell her it's ancient history and she should get over it...." Kronos was losing his patience and tightly gripped the handle of the shopping cart and nudged it into Ruth and Dottie. Kronos expected they would move onward, so he could get to his marshmallows, something akin to cattle getting prodded. But instead the little old lady Dottie spun around on Kronos and yelled at him, "Listen here, Sonny, there's no need for pushin'. You younguns have no patience! Didn't you learn to respect your elders?" It wasn't very often that a mortal could yell at Kronos and live. But Kronos figured he couldn't whip out his knife and kill Dottie in the middle of this crowded supermarket. He had to stifle the smile that wanted to emerge from her calling him a youngun and demanding respect for her as _his_ elder. Mortals were so fun sometimes. 

Kronos feigned an apologetic smile and made a hand motion indicating his innocence. Satisfied with that, Ruth and Dottie moved along. Kronos was so relieved that he could finally reach the marshmallows he tossed four packages into his cart. Maybe he would ask Dottie if she would want him to kill her cousin Edna and put her out of her misery. Actually what he wanted to shout after Dottie was "I am Kronos, I am the end of Time! Don't ever stand between me and my Marshmallows again!" 

Moving on he went down an aisle that had toys and three boys running up and down the aisle. Kronos thought that this was the worst aisle because it contained little children. As Kronos made his way down the aisle he watched the boys play. They were playing cops and robbers and pretending to kill each other using their hands as guns. The violence of the play amused Kronos. The boys started to squabble as Kronos passed, 

"Victor, you're dead. I shot you." 

"No, Manny, you missed me. I don't even _feel_ dead." 

"Victor, Manny's right, he got you." 

It was then that Victor backed up into Kronos' leg. He looked up at Kronos and instead of being scared of the imposing face with its blue eyes and scarred right eye the boy was fascinated by the scar and said, "Cool scar." His two comrades looked at Kronos and agreed. 

Kronos couldn't past up a chance to contribute to the violent tendencies of youth. He looked at the boys and said, "The first time you kill someone you will feel like a god. I promise you." A strange look came over each of the boys' faces. Surely no adult had ever told them such a thing. Then they heard their mother calling them and they ran to her at the end of the aisle behind Kronos. Kronos just smiled to himself. Maybe he could survive this shopping trip yet. 

Obtaining a can of coffee wasn't that hard. Next, Kronos went to the frozen foods section and stocked up on t.v. dinners. He was pleased by the convenience of modern food preparation. It sure beat the hell out of hunting for your dinner and trekking all over creation for some potable water. And he never had to die of trichinosis again. 

By the time he got to the check out area he thought that not another person could fit into the store. _All these people deserve to die, or at least worship me like a god,_ Kronos thought to himself. The line he got in was long and moved at a snail's pace. Could he at least be allowed to kill the people ahead of him in line, he'd even leave everyone else alone if he could just get the hell out of this supermarket! As he got closer, the woman in front of him placed all her items on the conveyer belt. Then she realized she had forgotten to get something mundane like bread and sent her daughter to get it. 

_When had life been allowed to get this lame?_ he wondered to himself. When the woman looked up at Kronos to offer her pardon she was taken aback by the scar on his face. She flinched slightly, which pleased Kronos. It was a reward for enduring this horrible shopping adventure. Kronos had only a small bit of patience left. As he, the woman and the cashier waited for the daughter to return with the bread, Kronos looked over the tabloid papers. The one that caught his attention stated "World's Oldest Man Found!" Kronos hastily flipped through it for some description of his brother, Methos. Just maybe Methos was still alive. It had been so long since he had seen or heard of his brother. It was 1987, but it felt like forever since he had ridden and terrorized with one of such brutal cunning. Methos was the only one good enough to help him in his slaughter. He was alive; he had to be. He was the survivor. 

Kronos was disappointed to learn the article was about a supposedly four hundred year old man in China. Eh, what was four hundred years compared to his four thousand years of being alive? The page opposite the old man was about the world's largest radish, which apparently had been a gift of an alien life form. Kronos let the tabloid fall to the floor. 

Finally the daughter returned with the bread. In just a few minutes Kronos would be free of this place and he could go home and study with his marshmallows. After placing his groceries on the conveyer belt, he proudly pulled out the one coupon he had. The cashier took it from him. She looked at it and then handed it back to him. "You can't use this. It's expired," she said in her bored Jersey accent. 

Kronos was ready to kill this girl with his bare hands, his favorite form of murder. This was his one coupon to use and it was for his marshmallows for fifty cents off! "What do you mean it's expired?" 

The girl seemed annoyed by his question. "The time is past for you to use it," she replied. 

Kronos growled at the girl, "Use the coupon." He gave the coupon back to her. There was a tense moment where the girl looked at him as if he was wrong to think the rules of the supermarket didn't apply to him. 

"Ex-Pie-Urd," she said slowly, as if the man she was facing was dim-witted. She flicked the coupon away. 

Kronos, his left hand clenching a bag of the sugary treats, leaned over very close to the girl. He looked into her eyes, and used four thousand years of sociopathic will to make her crumble. 

She stared back at him, blankly. She smacked her gum and listened to a Cyndi Lauper song that had been in her head for the last two years. "Nineteen fifty." 

The immortal's face reached a shade of red, which clashed quite horribly with the checkout girl's excessive lip-gloss. The bag he held onto burst open. Just as he was about to go for his knife, a cart nudged him from behind. He wheeled around, out of control. 

Dottie stood looking cross at his bad behavior. "Here, Buck-o," she waved a slip of paper at him. "I clipped the manufacturer's coupon from the Journal. If it'll get you out of my way, you can use it." 

Kronos wiped away a small bit of spittle from his chin and snatched away the coupon. He then triumphantly passed it to the girl, and glowered at her to make his point. 

Reluctantly, she pushed some buttons and got the discount awarded to him. Kronos was quite smug with himself and remembered thousands of years ago when he would have had to torture or maim a merchant to get the price he wanted. 

With his groceries bagged he headed out to his pick-up truck. What a harrowing shopping experience that had been. He ripped open the bag of marshmallows and began to eat. Then he headed home to study, and ultimately to plan the Apocalypse, which was the real reason he was in college. 

* * *

© 2000   
Please send comments to the author! 

<01/27/2000 

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